‘An hour later Aidan and Rory Tickett came to Dove Cottage and were shown the body, now cleaned up and dressed. They had no reason to believe that Vicky and Guy had been lying. Vicky offered to keep quiet so long as the Ticketts disposed of the body somewhere sensible. They went through his belongings, phone and laptop and found the coach reservation. It was Vicky’s suggestion that Aidan should impersonate Tomas, because they were a similar build. The Ticketts, needless to say, were incredibly grateful for Vicky’s promise of silence on this. They came back in the evening, and though they never told her, buried him in the garden. When Vicky asked later where they had disposed of the body, Aidan said, “Miles away from here, no need to worry.” Now mightily relieved, Vicky gave the house a much more thorough cleaning. She also told a white lie to Callum, along the lines of Tomas leaving to go back to Lithuania. She even got Aidan to write a postcard from London and send it to Callum as if it was from Tomas.’

‘The whole thing is beginning to make some sense now,’ Gillard said. ‘Did you get to talk to the child?’

‘No, she wouldn’t let me.’

‘Well, that has got to change. He’s just about old enough to give a coherent account.’ He thanked her and cut the call. He told Rainy what he had just heard.

‘Aye, sir. This is beginning to make sense. Do you remember the prophecy from the church? “In ages hence when England flees the Frankish arm, an innocent wielding a lost scramsax will here fell a Viking lord”.’

‘Well remembered,’ Gillard said.

‘Och, I didnae remember it, I wrote it down. And yesterday I did a wee bit of research. Well, I suppose Callum could be the innocent, wielding the scramsax, that nasty little weapon he found in the mud.’

‘What is the Frankish arm in this context?’

‘I’m tempted to say Brexit. But it could equally be the Battle of Hastings and all that.’

Gillard laughed. ‘And the Viking lord?’

‘Aye, that’s where I had a breakthrough. We already have the Viking angle, from the victim’s mitochondrial DNA, which shows a Scandinavian origin for him. The rest is about the name. In Lithuanian, lord, ruler, or sovereign are the same word: Valdovas.’

Gillard was by nature a sceptic, but he had to admit that those who wanted to believe in the prophecy had all the evidence they needed. But how could some seventh-century Anglo-Saxon scribe know that a young Lithuanian was to die here, a millennium and a half later, at the hands of a child?